3 a.m. autumn fell
winter's closing it out
smell dry steam heat

people on the sidewalks
	waiting for something uncertain to rumble thru
	planters into streetlight yawn
holding leashes and brownbags
any stoop better than their squalid insides
of dirt and woodfloor topography
steam cranks out latenight jazz accompaniment
of knocks, clocks and morse code cymbals

rooftop tomorrow smells
waterfall-stoops mouth simple sounds
of eastbound cars abiding lightly by

orange juice and dusty nickels punctuate
lamptable marbletop
light shades them into semicolons and commas
pauses and reiterations of the hours between now and sunlight
forces cast-iron incantations
gobbling green corduroys, undone laundry and wrinkled epic tomes

iron out the night
pressed for morning

birdnoise shuffling leaves still in the trees
Miles' trumpet-swell aping the quality of light
reflected from filmy barred tenement windows
green-shaded glows
light blue TV flickers
indiscernable cloud shudders

drowse with a hand a the nape of their necks 

return